Pandagon is daily opinion blog covering feminism, politics, and pop culture. Come for the politics, stay for the complete lack of patience for the B.S. and bad faith coming from conservative leaders and pundits.

Because he was a POW, dontchaknow

Sen. John McCain today issued some of his strongest criticism of President Bush over an aggressive interrogation technique, clearly suggesting that the president has endorsed torture.

During an assessment of the Bush presidency on “Fox News Sunday,” McCain discussed the administration’s use over “waterboarding,” a technique that has been used to interrogate terrorist detainees.

“Waterboarding to me is torture, okay? And waterboarding was advocated by the administration, and according to a published report, was used,” McCain said. “I obviously don’t want to torture any prisoners.”

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Thursday the United States does not use an interrogation technique known as waterboarding and argued that Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey would not allow the method.

“I am confident he would not condone such practices,” the Arizona senator told more than 250 students during a town-hall meeting at Coastal Carolina University. “I have been briefed enough to know we are not doing that today anywhere in America’s government.”

“It was just waterboarding,” McCain interjected. Update of an unintential implication: McCain made a joke about a discussion he’d had with Charlie Crist. McCain’s sin here is joking about torture, not actually dismissing its use in war.

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted “no” on Wednesday afternoon.

I’m pretty sure McCain could be a bigger mess at this point, I’m just not quite sure how.